Day 2 Results

*Whew*

2 more pages in the can! 

Breakdown:
(I'd give these a 3 & 4 out of 5 on difficulty / complexity)

Rough pages:  2.8 Hours
Pencils:            1.1 Hours
Lettering:         1.5 Hours
Page 1 inks:     1.5 Hours
Page 2 inks:      2.2 Hours

Total:                9.1 Hours

Not bad, but exhausting!!
I managed to finish the first page inks my 5:00, then finished up by 10:00 (after some food and a "few" episodes of Avatar).

Now if I could only manage to be FINISHED by 5:00 or 6:00. That would kick ass.

Tomorrow's only going to be a One Page Day, got other things that need attending to!

2011 - Mathematical!

So for me this is my first day back on the JOB since the holidays. Starting a fresh new year is all ways exciting and I couldn't wait to get back to working on comics.

December was fairly productive despite all the December distractions. I started using a time tracker app on my iPhone to see just how much time I actually spent working on comics over the last 3 weeks. Yeah, stupid time to start tracking hours when you're knee deep in the holiday season but there you go.

Things broke down as such:
Week One:    17.6 Hours
Week Two:     9.8 Hours
Week Three: 13.5 Hours

I attempted to not start kicking myself with only minor success seeing the results.

It got me thinking though. What IF I actually managed to put in an 8 hour day / 40 hour week doing comics in this "full time" manner I've been yammering on about? Deciding (agonizing over) to only work on one book at a time I figured I should be able to do 1 - 2 page of Angora Napkin a day. So today I got to put theory to test and clock my time while attempting 2 finished pages.

I had thumbnails for Pg 51 & 52 done before I started today at 8:30.

I roughed out the two pages on 8.5 X 11 paper while sipping wicked hot coffee at Starbucks. I really hit my stride somewhere between "Song 2" by Blur and "I Can't Stop Partying" by Weezer on my iPod. I guess that's when the caffeine kicked in.

Finishing that I ran some quick errands, picked up a new pad of Bristol board and a syringe for ink refills and made my way home. Note to self: driving downtown for coffee every day ends up A) costing a lot of money on coffee and B) eats up a lot of time. (None the less, I need to get out of the house once and a while or I go mental.)

Home, and the blank pages await!

I lightbox pencil one page out before stopping for lunch and a chat with Brenda, then back at page 2. Here it is all lettered.

And then... The Moment...

My awesome girlfriend got me this SWEET new brush pen for Christmas and today's pages would be it's trial run. I've been long using the Pentel Brush Pen (and love it) but came across this one on a pen fetish web site one day. It claimed to put the synthetic Pentel to shame with it's real sable hair bristles. I'm probably more excited about this then I should be. Brenda asked me if she should be jealous.... The jury's out on that for the moment.

So, I pop in the in cartridge and spend some time getting the ink flowing. I ink a panel, frown and go rise out the crappy ink in the cartridge and refill it with good old Rotering ink. Ahhh - satisfyingly black! 

It's a tricky brush pen! Shorter bristles then the Pentel and it really holds a lot of ink! I smeared a lot of lines because the ink came out so fluid as to not dry quickly enough for my impatient inking. Also, I had to (with great fear) scalpel off the very tip of the brush as it was a hair too long and kept catching on turns. It's going to take some getting used to but by the end I was getting better at it.

Too much pen info? Deal with it.

And so, having not drawn much of anything in a week or so and wrestling with a new tool my wrist was killing me by the end of page one. I checked the clock and took a dinner break. 

Determined, I set back to it after pizza. (Thank you Mom & Dad, I love my new toaster oven - you can cook a whole pizza in it!)

How did things break down?

(I'd gauge these pages as being a safe 2.5 (out of 5) for difficulty / complexity.)

Note to Self: I'd only finished inking 1/4 of the first page by 5:00

Roughing 2 pages:   2.1 Hours

Penciling 2 pages:    1.4 Hours

Letting 2 pages:       1.25 Hours

Inking 1st page:        2.0 Hours

Inking 2nd page:      1.6 Hours

TOTAL:                  8:35 Hours

SUCCESS! I completed 2 pages in one work day!

I think I'll continue to clock and blog my work week and see how things go. Might even set up the web cam and do some Livestreaming at some point, so stay tuned!

Assess, Adapt and Move Forward! Bring on 2011!!

    2010 is almost a memory! I must say it was a very good year and I have a very good feeling about 2011. It's been interesting doing the full time comic thing for the last month and a bit. I started out with a plan on how I was going to spend my work time and when that didn't work I revised it. Version 2 worked for a while but then "mild frustration" set in (see last post) and so I'm adapting it again.

   I think I've finally learned I can't do two books at once, sorry Chiaroscuro fans - it's returned to the back burner for the time being. I've also learned I don't make the best use of my time, hardly ever do I seem to put in 8 hours a day on my working days. (Also, I don't sleep enough and almost never exercise).

    

  Okay, I KNOW I can do better then this. So I'm starting off 2011 (starting on the 4th) with renewed determination to pick up the slack. I'm working exclusively on the next Angora Napkin book and I'm setting a 1-2 page a day goal. The book is all ready a year late (by my own deadline) for web serialization so I really want to get this thing MOVING and get it online early 2011! 

   

  If I can nail this pace the book will take 3-5 months to finish and then I can switch gears and tackle Chiaroscuro full time and get some momentum on that one.

    

    Wizard Con in Toronto, March 18-20th! I'll be there! 

   That's it from Meanwhile Studios for 2010, see you next year gang!

Happy Hollerdaze Napkin fans!

Mild frustrations

Hey look - Chiaroscuro book 2 is in the works!

I kind of knew that switching gears between two books was going to cause me a good degree of face-palming. Mainly, I can breeze through Angora Napkin pages then I run smack into a brick wall with Chiaroscuro.

Angora Napkin is loose, cartoony, fun and portable to the coffee shops to work on. Chiaroscuro is dense, slow paced, tedious to draw and entirely NOT portable. Also, I have around 450 pages to draw before the story is complete - it's a little daunting.

Angora Napkin is totally me in my element I've discovered. I LOVE drawing stupid cartoons. Chiaroscuro is... Challenging. I still don't feel entirely comfortable with the look of it yet and it constantly points out a lot of my shortcomings as an artist. I have this feeling it's a career spanning work-in-progress.

So far this month the finished pages count standing is:

Angora Napkin: 5
Chiaroscuro: 2

Part of my frustration lies in that I have so many more ideas pinging around in my head and comics are just SO SLOW to produce I just don't have the time to dedicate to developing them. I have no idea how some people (Doug TeNaple, I'm looking at you!) balance a family, comics, creativity and all the other things that make up a day.

OK, enough ranting and more drawing. I'm pretty sure that's really the only way to get where I want and so far as I'm aware I'm not getting any younger.

One last thing before I get back to work:

 BOOK SIGNING @ LIGHTNING BOLT COMICS

Charlottetown, PE.    DECEMBER 15th from 11-4

In the spirit of giving this season....

... Why not pick up a copy of Chiaroscuro or Angora Napkin for that special someone?

Scroll down the blog and you can find an Amazon link to both books, starting at as little as... $0.01???? Um, that's just "this" far from being free! Buy a few why not?

Or if you're feeling generous and benevolent you can buy one directly from me HERE. The bonus for you is you get an original drawing in your book and that warm fuzzy feeling of directly support the artist that created the work.

Either way you win!

Endurance II

Here's an old comic I found digging through the ruins. Click & Enjoy!